


Unshed Tears and a Smile

by luinel (geekns)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Donna Noble is too good for the Doctor, Episode: s04e12 The Stolen Earth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-06
Updated: 2010-03-06
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekns/pseuds/luinel
Summary: What was going through Donna's mind when the Doctor ran to Rose?





	Unshed Tears and a Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Still don't own David or Doctor Who... /cry

Donna Noble was scared. It was only recently that she had let herself embrace the idea of a closer relationship with the Doctor. Which seemed kind of silly, when one thought about it, because everyone had assumed over the past year that they were more than a friends, that they were married, and every time she had firmly denied it... until yesterday. Whatever had happened to the Doctor on his way to a sapphire waterfall had changed him, had made his emotions raw and left him clinging to her in support. Yesterday he had tried to act like nothing had changed, that they were still only friends, that he was fine again, but she could see it written all over him. He was afraid of dying. She wasn't used to seeing him afraid, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and shut out the darkness, protect him from anything that might hurt him.  
  
And then she forgot. It was all a blur now, but she knew that the fortune teller had not only seen her devotion to the Doctor, but she had turned that love against her. Her grandmum had always told her that love is the most powerful thing in the universe; she had always believed her, even though she had never experienced it before. In the end, she had gotten her wish--she had died to save the Doctor--but no matter how blurred that lost reality was, she still had this overwhelming sense of foreboding. She couldn't forget what Rose had said to her just before she jumped back in time:  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
No matter which way she turned it, between Rose and that girl at the Shadow Proclamation, it seemed that Donna Noble was out of time:  she would never get her happy ending with the Doctor, and she was going to die.  If this was the case, then she would put a strong face on.  She would make sure that, like when she stepped in front of that moving truck, her death would be one that made a difference in the universe.  
  
The worst of it was, the Doctor was looking to her for help now, but not in the way she wanted. He wanted nothing more that to be reunited with Rose, because to him, somehow that meant that everything would be all right.  And as she looked at him, she could see the desperation written all over him, and somehow it didn't matter to her.  Who was she anyway?  She was Donna Noble, a nobody.  Of course he would choose a blonde girl with a perfect body and sweet demeanor over herself.  He was only a man.  He was more than she deserved.  He had always denied their connection just as strongly as she had.  So it didn't matter.  He didn't mean to hurt her.  It was enough of a gift from him just to experience the love that he had given her, the passion, the joy.  She couldn't ask him to give more.  
  
So when the Doctor begged her to remember what Rose had told her in that lost universe, she did the only thing she could.  She ignored the stinging sensation that meant her eyes were tearing up, and she smiled:  
  
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"  
  
The disbelief and confusion was written all over his face as he turned to look at the woman he had lost.  She could see the relief in his features as he broke into a run, and she knew, even though she couldn't see his face, that he would be smiling.  As she watched the man that she loved run away from her, she smiled too.  Even as her heart broke, she smiled.  Because he was worth it all.


End file.
